Singapore GP data: How the power of the overcut was used against Mercedes at Marina Bay

Oscar Piastri scored a third consecutive podium finish and Charles Leclerc capped a comeback to P5 after starting the race in P9 at the Singapore GP. The McLaren driver and Ferrari driver had a strategically complex race against George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, but the pace of their cars allowed them to have a big advantage in the closing laps.

Piastri finished on the podium again after his recent victory in the Azerbaijan GP. Leclerc was able to move up to P5 on the Marina Bay street circuit and almost overtook both Mercedes as the Australian driver did.

Singapore GP data: How Leclerc and Piastri used the overcut to their advantage at Marina Bay

The race for both in their fight against the Silver Arrows can be divided into three distinct phases. As the strategic battle is sometimes difficult to read live, we at PlanetF1.com wanted to analyse in detail how the power of the overcut became the best ally of Piastri and Leclerc in this complicated Singapore GP for drivers and engineers.

First of all, we have to take into account the starting positions. Lewis Hamilton started the race in P3 behind Lando Norris and Max Verstappen respectively. George Russell started from P4 just behind Hamilton and Oscar Piastri started the race in P5 behind both Mercedes drivers. Charles Leclerc started P9 after his mistake in Q3 that left him without a lap time.

On the other hand, the starting tyres. Hamilton took the most risks with a soft tyre to try to attack Verstappen and Norris at the start. Russell, Piastri and Leclerc chose the conservative option of the medium tyre looking for a one-stop by fitting the hard tyre later in the race.

With a chaotic start in the midfield, Leclerc managed to climb up one position to P8 just behind Fernando Alonso. Hamilton and Russell maintained their positions. Piastri lost P5 to Nico Hülkenberg, but quickly took it back.

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Here begins the first phase of the race in which Hamilton has the biggest role. The Mercedes driver with his soft tyre is unable to get close to the lap times of Norris and Verstappen in the lead and falls more than eight seconds behind the Red Bull driver before making his stop on lap 17.

Having stopped so early due to the high degradation of the soft tyre, Hamilton exited the pits with traffic and he had to overtake Kevin Magnussen, Esteban Ocon and Yuki Tsunoda, with whom he lost a lot of time when he went wide in an overtaking attempt on lap 26.

After Hamilton’s mistake, Russell was still in clean air after his teammate’s stop, trying to extend his stint on the medium tyre. However, behind him was the constant threat of Piastri who was visibly much quicker and with the time lost by Hamilton, if he made his stop he could easily execute the overcut on the seven-time World Champion.

McLaren had two options in that scenario: stay on track in search of clean air to get all the pace out of the car and have a tyre advantage at the end of the race – plus the possibility of taking advantage of pitting under an hypothetical Safety Car – or rather make the pitstop and complete the overcut on Hamilton and also, when making the stop, produce an undercut attack on George Russell.

To avoid the latter, Mercedes were forced to bring forward their pitstop with Russell on lap 28. McLaren then decided to execute the first option of staying on track, what we know as doing an ‘opposite’ to Mercedes.

This would give McLaren a tyre advantage at the end of the race and also to have clean air immediately due to the large gap to Verstappen in order to get the full performance out of the MCL38 for some laps.

While all this was going on, Charles Leclerc was still stuck behind Fernando Alonso in P8. The Ferrari driver struggled a lot in this first phase of the race to overtake on track despite having a clearly superior car. The average lap times before the pit stops of both the Mercedes drivers reflect this.

The second phase of this battle begins at this very moment. When Russell exits the pits, he is more than four seconds ahead of Hamilton.

In other words, Hamilton had suffered an overcut from his own teammate. The decision to fit the soft tyre proved to be a bad one and stopping so early was going to be hugely detrimental to the Mercedes driver’s race.

After Alonso’s stop, Leclerc was again stuck for three more laps behind Hülkenberg, whom he managed to overtake on track. Piastri and Leclerc then found themselves in clear air to execute the overcut over Mercedes. Piastri had 10 seconds of delta time to Verstappen and Leclerc more than 18 seconds to Piastri.

Leclerc stopped on lap 37 when he already had Russell running on nine laps of hard tyre right behind him. The Ferrari driver also stopped to cover his position with Hülkenberg so as not to have to overtake him on track again. But again, he had Fernando Alonso ahead of him after pitting but with tyres 11 laps older than his own.

Piastri stopped two laps later and came out immediately behind Hamilton, less than a second behind. Having stayed on track longer, he had not executed the overcut directly. But he had 21 laps fresher tyres than Hamilton and more than 22 laps ahead of him to overtake him and go chasing Russell, with 11 laps older tyres and a car with less race pace.

And here begins the third and final phase of the race. The famous strategy known as ‘hunter’ and ‘prey’.

Piastri had it relatively easy. Thanks to the superior pace of the McLaren, which made him just lose approximately three tenths of a second to Russell and Hamilton while running on old medium tyres and much fresher tyres after pitting, he completed the overcut over both Mercedes successfully in just six laps to reach the podium.

Still to make the epic comeback was Leclerc. On lap 42, after being blocked by Alonso for three laps, the Ferrari driver finally managed to overtake the Spaniard. Ahead, Carlos Sainz in P6 was in a very different race situation to the Monégasque driver.

Ferrari ordered Sainz to swap positions with Leclerc on lap 43 and the Spaniard put up no opposition. Leclerc then had almost 20 laps to catch Hamilton who was 15 seconds ahead on tyres 19 laps older. And just as in the case of McLaren, with a car also superior to Mercedes in race pace.

In just eight laps, Leclerc hunted Hamilton down to reach P5. The Ferrari driver then had another 11 laps to try and catch Russell who was eight seconds ahead.

Leclerc pushed as hard as he could with the hard tyre which started to degrade quickly from lap 55 onwards. The Monégasque reached Russell’s DRS zone on lap 58, but due to the high tyre wear and the difficulty to overtake on track in Singapore, he didn’t make it to P4.

The time lost in the first stint due to Saturday’s poor qualifying doomed any chance for Leclerc and Ferrari to catch Russell. The Italian team clearly had much more pace than Mercedes in the race.

A brief recap of this strategic battle reveals a number of interesting conclusions. Oscar Piastri and McLaren had two equally valid options to secure the podium. The pace of the MCL38 was tremendously good and if the Australian had qualified better, he could have fought with Verstappen for P2, without any doubt.

Secondly, Mercedes made a huge mistake in choosing the soft tyre for Lewis Hamilton. The idea was too ambitious because at no point did Hamilton have a chance to fight Verstappen and Norris at the start of the race despite having a tyre with more grip.

Finally, Ferrari missed a great chance on Saturday to fight McLaren and Verstappen for the podium. Leclerc’s final stint, even having to overtake on the hard tyre, was incredibly quick. The SF-24 had plenty of pace to put Leclerc and Sainz in P5 and P6 ahead of Mercedes, at least.

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